Chapter 15: The Unveiling

The house was quiet.

Not empty. Just, composed.

It sat on a hill that had no name, designed by an architect who refused awards. Wide windows. Stone that held the sun. Rooms that didn’t echo.

Elise moved through it like she belonged, barefoot, espresso in hand, the faint aroma of roasted beans mixing with the cool stone air, reading something in a language I hadn’t learned yet.

I stood at the dresser.

Three watches in front of me.

The one that started it all, the ZF Richard Mille, real after all. The one Alexandre had passed to me. And the third.

Unworn. Untouched. Still in the box Rivière had sealed himself. A time capsule. A eulogy.

I hesitated at the third, pristine and untouched, a reminder of all that was lost. But my fingers closed around the first, flawed, worn, and honest. The one that had lied its way into truth.

---

We arrived just before dusk.

The space wasn’t just grand, it was sacred.

A converted gallery built into the bones of a centuries-old theatre. Once forgotten, now owned. Quietly. Under ARC.

Guests moved in whispers. The kind of guests who wore bespoke cologne and real silence. Who didn’t look at price tags because they wrote them.

Elise and I moved together. Neither of us leading, just, aligned.

She wore black. Simple. Devastating.

We greeted old names and new ones. A discreet nod from an old Emirati banker. A knowing glance from a collector who once tried to buy my Alexandre RM.

No one asked why we were there. They knew.

This wasn’t a debut.

It was a declaration.

At the centre of the gallery, under soft lights, stood the piece.

The velvet cover waited, heavy with anticipation.

Elise’s gaze met mine. No words. Just understanding. I took a breath, then pulled back the fabric.

The project Rivière had started, I had finished.

A monument to time, to restraint, to vision. Not a building. Not a sculpture. Something entirely new. Mechanical. Architectural. Living.

The room didn’t erupt.

It breathed.

After, we spoke with a man whose signature had once halted a nation’s debt crisis. He asked about the engineering. Elise answered half the question. I answered the rest.

And then I saw him.

At the edge of the room.

Rivière.

Not a ghost. Not a founder.

Just, watching.

He gave me the smallest nod, proud, distant, final, then disappeared into the crowd like a shadow retreating at dawn.

I stared for a second too long.

Elise noticed.

She waited.

Then leaned in, voice like memory:

“He built the pieces. But you made them whole.”

Her voice dropped.

“This is your world now.”

And then, finally, she kissed me.

No flashbulbs. No cheers.

Just the quiet promise of something real, something earned. Her lips warm, steady.

A beginning and an end.